What's it all about?

40 nights for the orphans of India. My 'Lent in a Tent' is about raising hugely needed funds for 'Shining Faces in India' orphanage in Salem, Tamil Nadhu, by sleeping ouside the Chaplaincy at King's Bruton for 40 nights. My target is at least £10,000 - which amazingly is only enough to feed the hundreds of children there for about two months.I hope that many might be inspired to trade 40 pounds for my 40 nights. Actually, in the back of my mind I'm convinced that we could smash through the target and go much much further ... I wonder.

Saturday, 23 February 2013

Reverse entropy ... night 18/40

As I understand it 'entropy' has come to mean a number of things. The meaning I'm thinking about in today's post is to do with the tendency of matter in a closed system to move from a state of order to disorder. I abandon my car in the garden and over time it'll fall apart. I abandon a heap of metal and over time it just won't become a car! Shame.

But today I'm thinking of reverse entropy - the movement of matter from disorder to order. It only happens if something acts on it to change it - and what a change we can bring if we do the acting.

At the orphanage Jayaraj has built an enormous new dining hall which, when complete, will have shiny new steam cooking equipment in place of smoky and dangerous fires to cook on. Here's how it looked when I saw it last year ...

Actually this is just one wing. If you imagine looking left from where this is taken you'd see exactly the same view down the other wing. It's vast ... and it was in quite some disorder with lots still do be done.

Enter our King's team! Jayaraj made sure the floor was properly concreted and walls plastered, then the team set to work with paint and creativity. Order bloomed out of disorder ...

Knowing how fantastically alive the children are in their faith the team also chose to give them an image of Jesus on the far wall. I find that kind of young talent quite breathtaking and I leap inside to see it put into such special and meaningful service ...

So, as my eye scans over the change I feel a real sense of awe and gratitude seeing what this group of young people has done. It's taken hard and daily hours, and they're still at it decorating every surface. I'll try to show you the finished job when it's done. The thing is, they'll leave this week, as their two months draws to a close, with absolutely no regrets.

One of the artists, Elena, is already dreading the parting. "Five days left and I'm already in tears", she said yesterday. I know from experience ... her tears will flow more and more. The children are so special, to leave them hurts dreadfully.

Once again, thank you to all you givers who have helped move things from disorder to order. The fund now stands at £6,200, a tremendous witness to your generosity.

For those still planning to put their stake in the ground then please ...